The Doctor's Orders
by Gumba Masta
Summary: Doctor Scratch reflects on the purpose of his existance shortly before the arrival of a an important houseguest.


**The Doctor's Orders**

Once upon a time there was a planet that was known as Alternia by its people. At least they called it by that name when they were alive. But now they and everything that had lived on this world was dead and all that had been left was a desert that had swallowed up the ruins of the past. There was no one who hid from the scalding heat of the sun during it's days and no one who gazed upon its pale moons during the nights that bathed the planet in their pink and green light. And yet there was someone who watched back from the green moon. Not that he had eyes to watch or that he needed any. For you see, he knew everything.

On this green moon there was a green city and within it stood a green tower and inside its green walls there lived a charming gentleman, dressed in a dapper manner who was the most excellent host there ever was. He stood there in his white suit adjusting his green fly under his white cue ball head while in front of a mirror. Not that his attire ever was in need of adjustment or that he would have need for a mirror, even if the impossible happened but the trickster in him knew when to put up a show for his guests.

"Indeed," he began to speak "Being the excellent host that I am I not only know exactly what my guests want but also," he flipped around addressing the empty room, "What my guests need. But you already knew that, didn't you?" He gestured back to his reflection in the mirror. "Of course you do, you handsome rogue. Because you, just as I, know everything." The gentleman let out a small chuckle and turned to leave the room.

He walked down a hallway with its walls adorned with paintings and memorabilia of things long past and of those that never were. "Yes," he mused to himself "I know everything. Aside from a few dark pockets that evade my omniscience. But other than that, I know everything. I know who had to be guided like a ship lost at sea and I know who had to be led astray to fall afoul of the reefs." He passed a intricate painting of a large dragon in flight as he burned a pirate's fleet of ships to cinders. "I know exactly when it was right to say the little "Doesn't he look tired?"s, the unassuming "Does he know what he's doing"s and the oh so inspiring "You could go so far"s." His fingers ran over the frame of another painting, showing a gray-skinned man with bull-like horns and wings like a butterfly's cradling the body of a woman bearing an robotic arm and a lance protrouding from her chest. "But even that much knowledge can bring one only this far and it was my master's gifts, passed down through me, that were the true blessings. Mightiest of them, Gl'bgolyb, emissary to the noble circle of horrorterrors whose terrible power fortified the grip of her Imperious Condescension over her people while its dark whispers seeded poisonous thoughts within their dreams."

He came to a halt in front of a staircase leading up. After slightly adjusting yet another painting, this one showing nothing but darkness, he began his ascent to the highest place in the building. "Yes, so many gifts were bestowed upon them, but my master has given me what I perceive to be the best of them." He opened the door at the end of the stair and stepped out onto the roof. "For you see, in his wisdom he ensured that my creation would leave me unable to feel regret. But he left me able to feel gratitude for that fact." He raised his hand and waited while the imposing corpse of a dead world loomed above his shiny white head. "Oh yes, infinitely grateful, as I surely would have felt regret at all the evil that needed to be done, remorse for every crime commited in his name and guilt for every life destroyed. Oh yes, I surely would." A portal opened and a meteor flew through it. The gentleman snapped his fingers and the meteor, seconds away of blasting through Alternia's atmosphere was suddenly hovering in front of him. Another snap and its cargo lay wriggling in his gloved hands. "And if I could feel pity my dear, sweet child," The small, maroon colored pupa looked up at the gentleman's cue balled head, "I would pity you. For all the grief your eyes will see, all the pain your hands will cause and all the suffering your soul must endure."

"Oh yes," the gentleman said as he descended down the stairs, "Indeed it was the best gift my master could have given me."


End file.
